While anticipation is building in Saudi Arabia for Monday’s Italian Supercoppa Final between Napoli and Bologna, in Italy all eyes are on Turin, where Juventus vs Roma will be played tonight.
In the refrain of a famous Italian song from the 1990s, Ligabue sang “siam quelli là, siam quelli là, quelli tra palco e realtà” (“we’re the ones there, between stage and reality”): in that song, the well-known singer-songwriter from Emilia, a lifelong Inter fan, highlighted how in a performer’s life the personal and professional spheres end up intertwining to the point where it becomes impossible to draw a clear line between the two.
In modern football, the sporting dimension and economic and marketing demands follow the same pattern. The sporting aspect is no longer the sole and central paradigm of the football world (and the same applies to all other sports) and must coexist, often through compromise, with the system’s financial needs. That is how we find ourselves, without being overly surprised, in the peculiar situation of a matchday played only in part: the 16th round of the Serie A season is almost halved, as 40% of the fixtures—four out of ten—have been postponed to allow Napoli, Bologna, Milan and Inter to compete in the Italian Supercoppa.
In Saudi Arabia, and in Riyadh specifically, the epicenter of the new global sports wealth thanks to the (virtually unlimited) investments made in recent years by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), the result of a precise strategy aimed at diversifying business ahead of the gradual phase-out of the oil industry in the coming decades (perhaps even sooner).
The Italian Supercoppa Final will be played in Riyadh on Monday, because when planning the calendar the league had the common sense not to overlap league fixtures and the Supercoppa on the same days. The mini-tournament was scheduled with semifinals on Thursday and Friday and the final on the following Monday, allowing the six Serie A matches that will go ahead as planned to be spread across Saturday and Sunday.
The semifinal results restored a certain sporting justice, as the two teams reaching the Supercoppa Final were Napoli (who defeated Milan 2–0), the reigning Serie A champions, and Bologna (who edged Inter on penalties), the reigning Coppa Italia winners.
With commendable intellectual honesty, Inter head coach Chivu had pointed out ahead of the clash with Bologna that his team had qualified for the Supercoppa thanks to the change in format—from two teams to four—rather than on pure sporting merit. Bologna’s penalty shootout win under Italiano against Chivu’s Inter (and Ligabue’s, to return to the opening reference) therefore restored the natural order of things, with the Supercoppa to be contested by the two Italian sides that actually lifted silverware last season.
Back in Italy, the Serie A weekend remains, as mentioned, almost cut in half in terms of matches played, but it does offer one of the most storied and emotionally charged fixtures on the calendar: Juventus vs Roma, kicking off tonight.
A match that needs little introduction, even for those who follow and read us with great passion from the United States. Everyone knows the iconic episodes that have become part of collective memory: the infamous Turone goal that was disallowed, the Aldair incident with the linesman, the penalty denied to Gautieri after a blatant foul by Deschamps. All episodes that, in the VAR era, would have had different outcomes and probably sparked different kinds of controversy.
Moments as iconic as the technical brilliance and heroic performances of the protagonists on the pitch: Alessandro Del Piero’s goals, often making him the defining figure of the fixture; Nakata’s and Montella’s comeback goals in the decisive match of the 2001 Scudetto race; right through to Buffon’s decisive saves and Riise’s 93rd-minute strike in January 2010, which sealed a dramatic comeback win for Ranieri’s Roma and fueled an improbable title chase against Inter that ultimately ended at the worst possible moment.
Juventus vs Roma has never been just another game. In the 1980s it was “the” rivalry by definition, a clash that was renewed in the 2000s and that today finds new storylines and compelling subplots.
Including the two benches: on one side Spalletti, the coach who restored Roma to prominence after the glory of their last Scudetto; on the other Gasperini, a Juventus man who last summer chose to sit on Roma’s bench rather than accept the Bianconeri’s offer.
“Because it was the toughest challenge,” Gasperini said in his press conference. What is not hard to predict, however, is a high-intensity battle, built on physical duels but also moments of real quality.
Get ready to enjoy a great Saturday night: it’s Juventus vs Roma.
L’articolo Those between Italy and Riyadh proviene da Soccer Made In Italy.
